


lightning machine

by salvage



Category: Fantastic Four (2015)
Genre: M/M, this is peak long island even for me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 19:53:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6580159
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salvage/pseuds/salvage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>The phone buzzes in his hand, screen brightening, and he almost drops it to the floor. He grabs it with both hands. </em>
</p>
<p>Remember the lightning machine?<em>, Reed’s text says. Ben’s eyes close. He still sees the words. Of course he remembers.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	lightning machine

**Author's Note:**

> dubious thanks to Traincat, who sold this movie to me with the words "found family" and "it is the worst film ever made" and somehow I was still surprised by how terrible it was and how profoundly it made me feel things. ben/reed things. in return for [the d&d au](http://traincat.tumblr.com/post/142926897879/the-tumblin-dice-fant4stic-benreed%22) that is the only explanation for the latter half of the film, here it is: the most Long Island I have ever been.

An hour and twenty minutes is never just an hour and twenty minutes. It’s the twenty-five-minute subway ride, the ten minutes you spend elbowing commuters out of your way in Penn Station before you arrive at the ticket booth and have to remember which options to select (Round Trip, station name O, Oyster Bay, pay credit, spend a moment remembering your new zip code because as soon as the Baxter Institute gave you your new mailing address you changed your credit card information). Wait amid the constellation of other travelers in front of the big board that will announce the track. Elbow more commuters out of your way in the rush for the train. Find a seat. Place your backpack on the overhead rack. Wait. Wait. Wait. Transfer at Jamaica. Wait. Wait. Wait. 

So, Ben gets it. Of course Ben gets it. He repeats this to himself, eyes shut tight, lying on his back in bed in his childhood bedroom. His bedroom. He opens his eyes. The light from the GRIMM sign illuminates the room as it has his whole life. He glances at his phone but of course it hasn’t buzzed. He rolls over and picks it up anyway. It tells him the time. 

Against his better judgment Ben pages his lock screen aside and enters his passcode, but he just stares at the screen, the brightly colored bubbles of apps, his thumb hovering over Messages but not actually opening it. His vision unfocuses and he looks at his hand instead of the phone, his rough knuckles, the ragged skin around his thumbnail. The phone screen dims. It will go black in a moment. He waits.

The phone buzzes in his hand, screen brightening, and he almost drops it to the floor. He grabs it with both hands. 

_Remember the lightning machine?_ , Reed’s text says. Ben’s eyes close. He still sees the words. Of course he remembers.

“If I’m right this should create the same amount of energy as in a bolt of lightning,” Reed had said, brows drawn together over his wire-frame glasses. He delicately touched a loose wire extending from a machine that looked like a huge wire-wrapped spider eating or making love to a metal kitchen colander. An extension cord trailed out from its side, connecting it to a mostly homemade generator. The generator buzzed softly.

“Shouldn’t you be wearing gloves?” Ben asked, arms crossed over his chest. He was wearing bright yellow kitchen gloves. 

“It’s fine,” Reed said absently, fiddling with the machine. It was set up in a corner of the garage, a few feet away from the transporter. (“A side project,” Reed had joked, for a given value of _joke_. “Because it’s near the side of the garage.”) 

“I’m not sure I—” Ben had said, and then the entire garage had exploded in light. There was a noise like a sheet of metal snapping in half. “REED,” Ben screamed, ears still ringing, blinking spots out of his vision.

Reed was slumped against the wall of the garage and Ben launched himself toward him. He knelt over Reed’s legs and put his yellow-gloved hands on Reed’s face. Reed’s glasses had fallen off. Ben was repeating his name. 

Reed’s eyes blinked open. “I should have worn gloves,” he mumbled. 

A hysterical giggle rose in Ben’s throat. “Yeah, you should’ve.” He shucked off his own gloves and tossed them aside, putting his hands back on Reed’s face, pulling his head forward gently to feel at the back of his skull for matted hair, the stickiness of blood. 

“I’m fine,” Reed said, reaching up to bat Ben’s hands away. “Where’re my glasses.” 

Ben glanced around, suddenly very aware that he was kneeling over Reed’s lap, his knees on either side of Reed’s legs. Reed had grown an inch last summer and Ben had more or less made peace with the fact that he wouldn’t catch up this time, but their height difference meant that when he knelt over Reed like this their faces were even, too close, and Ben could feel the warmth of Reed’s thighs where his own couldn’t help but touch them, even though their jeans. 

“Um,” Ben said, hyperaware of his body, feeling his cheeks warm. He glanced around and quickly stood, bracing a hand on Reed’s shoulder, and plucked Reed’s glasses from where they had fallen a few feet away. One lens was visibly scratched. “Sorry.” 

“A victim of progress,” Reed said, adjusting them on his face. “Let’s see.”

_Yeah_ , Ben texts to Reed. _It was amazing._

Ben had extended a hand to Reed and Reed clasped his wrist, fingers tight, palm warm, and Ben leaned backward to pull Reed up. Reed’s fingers loosened and he slid his hand over Ben’s, callused fingertips drifting across Ben’s palm. They both leaned toward the lightning machine.

There, at the center of the colander, on the platform where Ben had only a few hours earlier dumped a small handful of fine sand he had gotten from the beach, was a small, delicate, off-white structure that looked a little like the pictures of coral Ben had seen in his biology textbook last year. 

“I think…” Reed said. He picked it up. It was like a tiny tree branch from space cradled in his palm. “I think it worked.” 

Ben remembers the hot ozone smell of the garage and the cool summer air that rushed in when they opened the door. He remembers squinting in the sunlight, the corners of his lips drawing up as he looked at Reed: Reed’s pale skin and dark hair, the softness his cheeks hadn’t yet lost, the smile he couldn’t suppress when one of his projects worked. 

_I miss working on projects like that_ , Reed responds. 

_Transdimensional portals not enough for you?_ Ben texts, smiling a little. 

_It’s not that_ , Reed answers, then goes silent. Ben won’t presume to know what he means because what Reed misses is vastly different from what Ben misses. Whatever Reed thinks of when he remembers those stuffy summer days and cold winter nights, Reed’s parents’ space heater humming between their feet as Reed and Ben hunched over the worktable, knees bumping together beneath the table and Ben careful not to let them press together for too long, or the sharp slant of sunlight striping Reed’s dark hair and the pale back of his neck where the collar of his shirt hung back—this is not what Reed remembers. Disorderly notebooks and stray pens and pencils, the side of Reed’s hand dark with graphite—this is not what Reed remembers. Ben is sure of that much, at least. 

_Come back_ , Ben types, but he erases the letters unsent. Neither of them wants that. _Come home_ , he tries, but it’s false. This small town, its shops and its churches and its view of the water, was never Reed’s home. 

_Come here_. Ben stares at the text box, heart pounding. The screen is bright in the darkness. This is what he wants. He thinks about the train, its blue and green vinyl seats and its white plastic walls. He thinks about Ben and his big workshop, the bright computer screens and whiteboards covered in equations, tables and tables of blueprints. He deletes the message. 

He can’t tell if it’s his turn to respond or if it’s still Reed’s, so he thumbs the power button and the screen goes black. He holds the phone with both hands for a moment. He waits. 

Without thinking about it too hard, Ben unlocks the phone again. _I can get out of working this weekend, if you have some free time._ He hits send. 

_Yes_ , Reed immediately responds. It sounds suspiciously like “please.” And then: _And don’t worry, I won’t make you take the drunk train back._

_Thanks buddy_ , Ben texts. _Now go to sleep._

_You first_ , Reed replies. Ben imagines Reed holding his phone in the darkness, like Ben, his fingers splayed over it, the glow illuminating his face. Ben was always better at falling asleep than Reed was, his mind free of the tangle of ideas that Reed seemed to be constantly picking at. He sets his phone on his nightstand and thinks about the faraway noise of city traffic, the hum of an elevator, the thump-click of a door closing somewhere down a hallway. He thinks about Reed, thirty miles away, taking the deliberately even breaths that he read in some book somewhere could help him sleep, listening to the traffic and the elevator and the door—or whatever faint ambient noise seeps through the walls of the Baxter building—maybe thinking about Ben. He sleeps.

The next day drags, like all the days do, now; he doesn't miss high school, not really, but its drudgery was always tempered by the fact that it was time he got to spend with Reed. The brightness of Reed’s future seemed to cast a warm glow on his, too, and he seems to have taken some of that light with him to the city. Ben doesn't have any classes today so he’s working at the shop, shuffling papers around the office as he listens to Daniel dismantle a car just outside. It’s an unseasonably warm day for November and once he’s spent a sufficient amount of time watching the dust motes swirl in the light filtered through the somewhat dirty office window he goes to stand outside, resting his shoulder against the side of the house, face tilted toward the sun. 

Then Ben goes inside and starts packing.

The Long Island Railroad is terrible in its comfortingly familiar way, the automated pings and announcements droning into background noise. This is the train to. The next station is. He slings his backpack on and stands by the train doors too early, watching the increasingly urban landscape crawl past the windows as the train stutters to a halt and then picks up speed again, nearing the station where he will transfer to another train that will take him closer to Reed, and then a subway that will take him still closer. 

_Almost there_ , Ben texts as he emerges from the subway. The streets are packed with the after-work crowd, walking with purpose so the unbuttoned fronts of their suit jackets flutter open in the wind, high heels clicking. It’s been a while since Ben staggered out of a taxi, arms laden with the few bags they both knew Reed could have carried himself, but even if he hadn’t remembered the street, the Baxter tower is an unmistakable glass-and-steel monolith cutting up from the sidewalk and into the sky, surrounded by buildings that might seem tall enough next to anything else. Ben crosses the threshold. 

Reed is waiting in the lobby, practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, phone clutched in one hand, and when he looks up to see Ben the small smile that Ben can already see at the corners of his lips breaks into a wide, bright grin. He pushes off the security desk and rushes toward Ben.

They fall into a hug without even thinking, Ben’s face pressed into the crumpled collar of Reed’s shirt, Reed’s breath ruffling Ben’s hair, arms tight, Ben clutching a handful of the back of Reed’s shirt. Reed smells like himself. Ben’s throat feels tight. He closes his eyes and breathes in. 

They separate and Ben is suddenly self-conscious that they’re in such a public space; the glass panels of the lobby of the building let in squares of sunlight and one falls across Reed’s face, illuminating the bright hazel of one eye, his pale cheek, the curling ends of his hair growing out of the haircut his mom had made him get before he left for Baxter. 

“Hi,” Ben says. 

Reed still has one hand on Ben’s arm. He’s smiling so wide. “Hi,” he says. 

“Should we, uh,” Ben says.

“Oh! Yeah.” Reed turns and uses the hand that still hasn’t left Ben’s arm to steer him toward the elevator bank. Characteristically, he immediately launches into a description of the work they’re doing on the transporter, he and the girl from the science fair and “this creepy shut-in,” which Ben has to protest. 

“How does the phrase ‘creepy shut-in’ not describe you,” Ben asks. 

“I have a friend!” Reed protests as the elevator doors open with a ping and a soft whir in front of them. 

Ben rolls his eyes. “My sympathies to that poor bastard,” he says, barely keeping the smile off his face, and expertly dodges Reed’s elbow. 

Reed’s room looks only marginally more moved-into than it did the only time they Skyped, a few days after the day Ben took the train back to Long Island by himself. 

“Do you even live here?” Ben asks, dropping his backpack on the floor. 

“I spend most of my free time in the lab.” 

Ben wanders over to the window, looking out over the city just because he can, the setting sun gleaming between the buildings of midtown. Bracing one hand on the wall, he leans forward, peering down at the street, and has to suppress a moment of vertigo. “Still a nice view.”

“Yeah,” Reed says, in the tone of voice that means “Reed Richards does not care about this thing.” 

“You could at least pretend to appreciate it.” Ben twists around to stare at Reed.

“I just said ‘yeah,’” Reed protests, coming to stand next to Ben at the window as though trying to prove that this is not the first time he has stood here since the day he moved in. 

“Okay,” Ben says skeptically, “you can fool these people, but I’ve known you since we were ten and, _the day after I helped you steal a power converter to make the teleporter_ , I had to listen to you give that bullshit career day report about how you wanted to become Director of the—what was it? The Fiscal Affairs Department? Of the International Monetary Fund?” 

Reed laughs, shoulders hunching up, bringing his hand up to half-cover his mouth. “Yeah, I think I did, like, forty minutes of research on the most boring topic imaginable to my ten-year-old self, just to spite that man.”

“It worked, though. I seem to remember you getting a passing grade after the class got so bored they nearly revolted.”

“Yeah, didn’t someone try to climb out the window?” Reed taps his finger to his lips, remembering.

“Yeah,” Ben says, deadpan, “that was me.” 

Reed’s laugh is loud and bright, his smile lighting up his whole face as he looks over at Ben, and it feels as though they’re sitting on the broken-down couch in Ben’s living room where if you sit too close together you fall into each other; it feels as though the center of gravity in the room has shifted to the exact spot where Reed is standing right now and Ben can’t help but be pulled into its—into his—orbit. 

“Okay,” Reed says, voice still light with laughter. “Point taken.”

Ben bumps their shoulders together, trying not to fall into Reed’s personal gravity well. But Reed bumps him back and then leans toward him, shuffling his feet a little so he can press his arm against Ben’s. Ben swallows. It feels as though three long months of intermittent text conversations and too-short phone calls is about to bubble up in his throat and choke him. 

“I, uh,” Reed says. They look out at the sun setting between the buildings. Ben’s upper arm feels warm where Reed’s is pressed against it. “I missed you.” 

“Yeah,” Ben says, heartbeat quickening. “Me too.” He suddenly feels warm all over, unsteady on his feet, overly conscious of how his hands are tucked into his pockets. 

Reed turns toward him a little and Ben can’t help but face him, standing so close he has to tip his chin up to look at him. Half of Reed’s face is faintly illuminated by the setting sun. 

“Why the lightning machine?” Ben asks. 

Reed’s face twitches, something that’s almost a smile crossing briefly over his features. “It was… it was ours.” He glances toward the window, then back to Ben. “We made it together, and it worked.” He shrugs too casually. “It was ours.” 

“Oh,” Ben breathes. He thinks about the little branch of fulgurite that Reed had removed from the lightning machine; it had been hollow, they had discovered, and Reed had held it between their faces so they could look at each other through it. He thinks about throwing himself across the room toward Reed’s still, slumped form. He thinks about the flash of lightning. 

Ben raises his hand to Reed’s face, sliding his fingertips into Reed’s hair, his palm to the soft line of Reed’s jaw. He feels the weight of possibly the worst decision of his life pressing down on him but he rises up on his toes anyway, tugging gently at Reed’s head, feeling Reed lean down to meet him somewhere in the middle. Ben’s eyes close. 

Their noses bump. Ben jerks back, eyes opening, taking a sharp breath to stammer out some kind of apology, but somehow Reed huffs out a soft laugh and catches Ben’s hips, his hands feeling very wide. The second time Reed bends down it feels easier to lean up into him. Their mouths meet this time. They both still, feeling the way they fit together. Ben exhales. He parts his lips and Reed tilts his head and the kiss becomes something new, something where Ben is pushing his fingers into the soft curls of Reed’s hair and where Reed is sliding his hands around Ben’s waist; something involving Ben’s whole body and Reed’s, too; something arcing like electricity between them. Ben tilts his chin up more but his nose nudges Reed’s glasses, skewing them slightly on Reed’s face, and he draws back a little, breaking the kiss. Reed smiles, soft and close.

“Was that—” Ben says in the warm intimate space between their mouths, but he stops, suddenly very aware that there’s an answer to the question that he won’t be able to handle.

“That was good,” Reed finishes for him. 

“Okay.” Ben kisses him again because he can. Reed kisses back. Okay, okay. One of Reed’s hands is anchored at the small of Ben’s back, fingertips in the groove of his spine.

“Um. Should we,” Reed says. His face is still warmly illuminated by the orange glow of the setting sun but, this close, Ben can also see the flushed pinkness of his cheeks. His glasses are still crooked. “Can I take you to dinner?” 

“That would be a date, right? This is a date? You’re taking me on a date?” Ben asks, a little bit unsure but mostly just to be an asshole. 

Reed looks pained. “Oh my god. Yes, Ben, I’m taking you on a date,” he says, face growing suspiciously pinker. “Say y—that’s okay, right?” 

Ben closes the gap between them, surging up to kiss him again, his hands splaying over the smooth skin of Reed’s neck and his crumpled shirt collar. “Yes.”


End file.
